Youth Sports | Louisville teen on national trampoline team

At the United States Trampoline and Tumbling Association team trials in Hammond, Ind., last month, 17-year-old Jordan Aycock of Louisville was selected to the organization’s national team — the only Kentuckian to make it.

Jordan, a junior at Christian Academy, competed at the elite level against 17 boys on the “double mini,” a trampoline about 10 feet long. The athletes run, jump, do a flip on it and flip off of it onto a large landing mat.

“Jordan is an unusually gifted athlete,” said his coach, Holly Logsdon, “He just has this amazing catlike awareness in the air”

Jordan started competing in tumbling when he was 7, but he took a five-year break in middle school and high school before returning to the sport and training for the past year.

Logsdon said it isn’t that unusual for boys to do that. They may question the “coolness” of tumbling or try other sports. But for those who come back, she finds that often the boys can pick up where they left off easier than girls can.

Jordan’s father, Kent Aycock, said Jordan made the 12-and-under national team at 10 before he took the time off.

“We asked him to do something for a family reunion about two years ago,” his father said. “I didn’t know what he was going to do and he ran and did this tumbling pass. And everyone was amazed and like, ‘Wow you really need to continue doing this.’ So, he got back with Holly last year and he’s made the national team again. I’m really proud of him.”

Jordan splits time between his father and his family in Jeffersontown and his mother, Nina Aycock, and her family in Prospect.

He will perform at nationals the next two years, including this June at Broadbent Arena. He’ll go to Las Vegas over Labor Day weekend next year to train with Cirque Du Soleil coaches.

“Surely, if he keeps at this,” Logsdon said, “the only place you can go from here is to a world championship level. Now, he’s not quite ready for that, but (he’s on) a good path where that can be a possibility in a year or two.”